We all just kind of stood there, looking at Shane for a moment, wearing expressions that varied from shock to fear. Because Shane doesn't say things like that; he doesn't admit out loud that something's gone wrong.

Mostly because he doesn't believe in stating the obvious, but a little bit because if he's saying it, then it's probably worse than you think it is.

Shane sighed and rubbed at his eyes briefly before he met my gaze. A little hoarsely, he said, "We need to go get them."

I felt fear beat in my chest like wings, separate from my heart, and desperately tried to keep my mind in check before it could supply me with ideas of all of the horrible things that could happen to Kyle and Sacha.

It didn't work too well.

Shane pulled out the map he and Kyle had put together, when they'd been scoping out the town and spread it out on the ground, crouching down and tracing a finger over what I thought had been Kyle and Sacha's quadrant.

Cassidy caught my eye, and I went over to her.

Her eyes flicked to Shane, then to the kids and she nodded her head, asking me to follow her. I saw Shane look up briefly as she and I wandered a little away from the group before looking back down at the map, his eyebrows pulling together sharply.

I could practically see a plan being formed.

Cassidy touched my arm to regain my attention, making me start slightly. She bit her lip and asked, "What is he going to do?"

I frowned. "He's going to go get his brother."

There was no other answer here. Not for Shane. Not for me.

Cas rolled her eyes, making me scowl, and said, "Yeah, no. I understand that part. I mean how is he going to do that?"

"I'm sure you'll know just as soon as he does," I snapped, then inhaled deeply. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Cas just shook her head.

She got it.

"Raleigh?" Shane asked. I looked up to find him waving me over.

Cas pushed me lightly, and I went back over to Shane who looked grim. He took my elbow and turned me slightly away from the others, which I hadn't been expecting. Shane didn't usually keep important discussions like this all hush-hush.

I understood why he did this time, when he said, "Sam and Vik need to go back to the cars. I'm not taking them with us. I'm not going to risk it."

I looked over his shoulder at where the others were watching us and nodded minutely. After what we had seen I more than understood where he was coming from. Shane leaned in a little closer and asked, "Do you think I could get Danny to stay with them?"

Now I bit my lip. Yeah... that was probably not going to happen.

I told him as much and he sighed. He looked down at me and asked, "You have your gun right?"

I nodded.

Shane looked up at the sky, which was a pale, watery blue, then looked down again. But he looked down too fast. He hadn't given himself enough time to hide how truly worried he was from me. I wrapped my fingers lightly around his wrist and squeezed gently before letting go and stepping aside.

He squared his shoulders and turned to the others, who had subconsciously gathered in, like they knew he was about to speak. Shane looked at me one last time before he just ripped the band-aid off. "Sam, Vik. You're going back to the truck."

He waited as an instant uproar ensued, both arguing violently to come with us. The only time he wavered though was when Vik said, "Why do you get to go after your brother, but I can't go get mine?"

Shane's mouth thinned down into a pained line but all he said was, "I'll bring him back, Vik. I'm bringing them both back." His spine stiffened even more, if that was even possible, and he said, "What I don't need, though, is you getting in my way. I know how to do this, and you need to trust me."

Viktoria had turned pale with fury, but I could see the tears shining in her eyes. She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut just to whirl around and stalk away from us toward where we had left the vehicles. Sam stopped long enough to nod at Shane before running after her.

We waited until they were gone, then Cassidy turned to Shane and said, "Okay. You said it. You know how to do this. So how do we do this?"

Shane pulled his gun. "We clear it. We go house to house. But we do it smart. We do it with order and we keep it controlled. Nobody goes off script, understood?"

We, all three of us, raised an eyebrow at him. I will say this for Shane, he didn't back down an inch, just returned our looks until he had gotten a nod from everyone.

Shane took out his map again and said, "We'll start here, on Blue Bird. We'll work west to east, that way the sun is always at our backs. After that, we'll work our way back to the beginning of Sparrow and do it all over again."

Cassidy nodded and said, "Okay. Danny and I can—"

"No," Shane interrupted flatly. "We don't split up. We work as a unit. I'll show you how."

Again, he waited until we had all given some sort of confirmation before he folded the map back up. Shane narrowed his eyes, studying the three of us. It looked like he was thinking about seven things all at once.

Danny looked at me and I shrugged. Cassidy just sighed.

Shane rolled his eyes at the three of us and said, "All right, this is how it goes. I breach. I go in first. Which means Danny, you're going to pop the door. Cas, you're rear guard, which means you keep an eye on what's happening behind us, got it?"

Both Danny and Cassidy nodded, and Shane finally turned to me. "You're my second. You come in after me. I clear the first room, you clear the second and we continue through the house like that, with Danny and Cas making sure nothing gives us a nasty surprise from our backs."

Again, the synchronized nod.

Shane sighed. "Then, we do the whole thing over again."

We started walking then, Shane giving us little pointers and instructions. Basically our own little boot camp crash course. When we got to the first house, Shane turned and said, "Just remember. Stay together, keep your eyes open. Fast isn't fast, fast means mistakes. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Fast is powerful. We're not making any mistakes here."

I managed a half-smile. "Let's go get them."

"Man, I never thought I'd miss Kevlar." Shane managed a half joke.

The movies make it look awesome. Super bad ass and exciting, with lots of noise, shouting and gunfire and warnings that it's the police or whatever.

Really clearing one house after another is exhausting. You're all amped up, then you get inside. You're tense around every corner, every doorway, until you clear it and you relax minutely, just to tense up all over again at the next door.

You have a couple seconds to reset between houses, then it's the same drill all over again.

With every house, every second that we got through without finding even a hint of Kyle and Sacha, things got worse.

Shane does this thing were he just retreats into himself, and that's what was happening. He was just going through the motions, letting the method take over so he didn't have the time to think about what ifs.

He paused for just a minute at the top of the last street, though, and looked at me.

"He'll be here," I said, throwing as much conviction as I could into my words.

Shane just shrugged. I don't know if he believed me. I don't know if I believed me. But it had to be said.

We started the process again. We got halfway done and things were getting desperate.

"Maybe they're just in another part of town," Danielle suggested, just to be shut down by a sharp head shake from Shane.

I looked at her and translated for him. "Kyle wouldn't leave his assignment. And he would check in if he did."

Danny bit her lip, her fingers going to her cross, which made me look away. I didn't think it was the time to be making any sort of entreaties to a higher power. I didn't want it to be that bad.

It's always the last house, isn't it?

You have to go through all the work. Because otherwise it would be too easy, right? Not only do you have to face whatever needs facing, but you also need to be tired while you're doing it.

The apocalypse life lesson here: Learn to live with being tired. Get used to it. Embrace it. And know that there is always going to be a time when it bites you right in the ass.

We got to the last house and stepped quietly up on to the porch. Shane paused at the door, eyes flitting over everything before shutting for a moment as he listened. I reached for the doorknob but Shane grabbed my wrist.

I looked up and he put a finger to his lips before taking small, silent steps back. Speaking right into my ear, he said, "Voices."

He led us back to the side of the house, avoiding windows, crouching down. The rest of us followed suit.

Shane looked up at Cassidy. "Can you get a look inside?"

Cassidy nodded and slipped away silently.

I know it's probably a stereotype, because she's Cherokee, but seriously, Cassidy is like the sneakiest human being I know. One minute she's not there, the next she is, and she thinks that almost giving someone a heart attack is hilarious. I'm convinced that the girl is actually a ghost that we can just all see, she's really that quiet.

It took Cassidy all of three minutes before she came back to us, the normally warm hue of her skin washed out, her eyes very large. She took in a shaky breath and said, "Kyle's alive. I couldn't see Sacha. There are two of them. They're..." she trailed off looking rattled. "I don't know what they're doing," she finished, her voice no more than a breath.

Shane and I looked at each other. I nodded and said, "Which window?"

"North side of the house," Cassidy whispered rubbing at her arms, trying to get rid of the goosebumps I could see on her skin.

I shivered, then made my way as quickly as I could around the house while still staying quiet.

The first window I looked into didn't allow me to see anything, but I could make out voices now. I went to the second window, and had to cover my mouth to keep my horrified gasp from escaping.

There were two. One sitting on a couch, watching, the other hovering over Kyle who was slumped in what looked like a dining room chair, the wire binding him the only thing keeping him upright.

I watched as Kyle moved weakly, the wire cutting into the skin of his chest and arms.

My eyes traced the scarlet line that curled loosely over Kyle's arm, leading to a needle sunk into his skin.

They were draining him.

I turned sharply and made my way back to Shane almost carelessly in my rush.

I told him exactly what I'd seen, finishing with, "We need to get in there. Now."

Shane had paled considerably at my revelation before his expression hardened and he said, "We go in there like we've been doing. But Danny and Cas are going to go through the back. These sons of bitches aren't going anywhere."

It didn't require anything more than that.

We split up.

Shane and I got to the porch. I put my hand on the knob and looked at him.

He nodded and I opened the door.

Shane's shoulder slammed into the wood and it smashed into the wall behind it, starting a cacophony of sound.

Now it was like a movie. We poured into the house, rushing into the room Cas had pinpointed, with Shane and myself opening one door, and Danny and Cas slamming their way through another.

They weren't expecting us. But that hardly mattered.

I saw the one next to Kyle reach for a scalpel, the silver metal wicked and lovely in the light. He shouted something, moving the knife toward Kyle's neck.

I saw a small red line open up, and couldn't let anything more happen. Shane's voice rang out next to me, but I was the one who pulled the trigger.

I felt my muscles tense, I felt the recoil. I saw the round carry neatly through the man's chest, throwing him backwards.

I wasn't thinking about the other one.

I leaped across the room slapping my hand against the wound on Kyle's neck, ripping the needle draining the life from him away. I turned slightly to ask Shane for a towel or a shirt or something to stem the bleeding.

It was almost comical in a way. Everyone had frozen but me. It was like standing in some kind of wax museum.

Shane looked furious and terrified and I realized, belatedly, that I had completely broken every rule and disregarded every bit of instruction he had given us.

And Shane paid for it.

The first one to unfreeze was the other man. The one who had been sitting on the couch, watching the life drain out of Kyle.

He lifted his hand and I saw black metal.

Then, I watched as a bullet tore through Shane's shoulder.